


Celebratory Electrolytes

by rainbowninja167



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cuteness and fluff, M/M, mostly canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-19 09:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22742539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowninja167/pseuds/rainbowninja167
Summary: Louis is releasing new music, and he's totally relaxed about it. The other boys...not so much.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 104





	Celebratory Electrolytes

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this last year, right after Louis released "Two of Us." I just rediscovered it, hidden in my fic folder, and so now I'm sharing it in honor of Walls! If this fic looks familiar, it's because I posted it on tumblr first, but I like having everything collected on AO3. So here it is!

Louis yawns his way down the stairs in search of breakfast, but comes to an abrupt stop at the sight that greets him in the kitchen.

He doesn’t know what’s more damning: the full fry-up gracing their kitchen table at 5:30am on a Thursday, or the intense nonchalance with which Harry is drinking a cup of coffee.

“I am fine, you know,” Louis frowns at Harry. “I’m excited, actually.”

“’Course.” Harry still has on the ridiculous flannel pajamas he insists on wearing to bed in the winter, and his curls look a bit like they were dragged through an electrical storm backwards, and from the state of the kitchen sink there’d been a gruesome egg-related accident in this kitchen not ten minutes ago, one that Louis will probably have to clean up himself, because Harry enjoys cleaning everything but dishes, which he says are “too wet,” a statement that has not gotten any less baffling in the eight years since Louis had first heard it, and, really, the bacon and beans on Louis’ breakfast plate are looking more suspicious by the moment.

“This is a celebratory fry-up,” Harry insists. “Look, there’s cinnamon toast with sprinkles on it. Yum…” There _are_ sprinkles on it – rainbow ones. Louis wonders how many jars of discarded sprinkles are now crammed in the back of their tea cupboard like Louis won’t immediately notice them there.

“Huh.” Louis gives Harry a narrow-eyed look, but accepts a mug of coffee, the toast, and a kiss, in that precise order.

By 5:45am, his manager had shown up and the day’s painfully tight promotional schedule had begun, but Harry brought him a takeaway curry for lunch. They had to eat in the back of a hired car, circling the BBC studios, but they’ve eaten curry in worse vehicles. Plus, here, he can lean against Harry and close his eyes for a moment. Harry eats his curry quietly with one arm around Louis, like he knows Louis needs this moment to himself.

…A moment that promptly shatters with the sound of Harry’s mobile.

“Fuck off, we’re having lunch,” Harry says into his mobile, from which Louis infers that it’s Liam on the line. “Yeah, he’s here with me.” Harry’s shoulder shifts under Louis’ head, like he’s craning down to look at him. “He says he’s fine.”

“I _am_ fine,” Louis says crossly, opening his eyes.

“He just said it again,” Harry relates to the mobile, and then listens for a while, scrunching up his face and saying “I know, Liam,” at regular intervals. And then, finally: “He wants to Facetime with you.”

So Louis sighs and sits up and accepts the mobile that has been shoved into his hands. Liam, when the video connects, looks like he’s just come back from a workout. He takes a big sip of something green and horrible, and then grins at Louis.

“Mate! I’ve been on Twitter all day. Looking good, yeah?”

“Think so,” Louis agrees.

“Are they running you ragged today? Harry _is_ feeding you, isn’t he?”

“I’m sat right here with a tub of curry in my hands, Liam.” Harry scowls. “What d’you think I’m doing with it, just waving it in his face?”

“No—” Liam rushes to assure him.

“Yes,” Louis interjects.

“Maybe,” Liam concedes. “Well I don’t _know,_ do I, Harry. That’s why I _asked_.”

“He is feeding me,” Louis confirms.

“Did he make you the Green Goblin for breakfast?” Liam waves his own sludgy drink winningly at the camera. “I sent him the recipe. It’s really good for energy and also positive thinking.”

“Yep!” Harry says quickly and then turns to Louis with wide, desperate eyes.

“Yes, that is absolutely what I had for breakfast. It was…green! Really, really…green. Thanks, Liam.”

“Harry said he was just gonna do a regular fry-up, like a comfort food thing? But I thought you’d want the electrolytes.”

“ _Celebratory toast_ ,” Louis hisses at Harry, who looks utterly unrepentant about the whole thing.

“ _At least it wasn’t celebratory electrolytes,_ ” he whispers back.

“Anyway—“ Liam says, which is when Louis’ own phone vibrates in the pocket of his trousers, between him and Harry. Without missing a beat, Harry pulls it out, glances at the screen, and presses a few buttons.

“How’s he doing?” Niall says the minute his face appears on the iPhone screen, turned toward Harry.

“I’m fine,” Louis says loudly. “Really!”

“I asked Harry, didn’t I?” Niall shouts back.

“Wait, is that Niall on another phone? Turn me ‘round, I need to ask him something,” Liam interjects. Louis sighs, but obligingly turns the phone in his hand so that it’s facing the one in Harry’s hand, just a few inches away.

“Right, you remember that one actor in that film? From when we got high and tried to make popcorn in the hotel coffee maker?”

“Oh my God, _that’s_ what you needed to know so badly you called my mobile three times in the last hour? I was working! And also, you could have _texted_.”

“Does that mean you don’t know it?” Harry asks innocently.

Niall huffs. “You’re thinking of Brad Pitt. In _Mr. & Mrs. Smith_.”

“Wait, I feel like I would remember— Are you sure it was Brad Pitt?”

“Liam doesn’t think it was Brad Pitt,” Harry contributes.

“Oh my fucking— I can’t talk to either of you when you’re like this,” Niall says, tugging on his hair with the hand not currently holding his phone. “Swap me so I can speak to Louis.”

Louis and Harry obligingly swap phones, and as Liam seems to forget his own phone is still filming – in favor of scrolling Brad Pitt’s imdb page – Louis is left with Niall.

“How’re you feeling about performing later?” Niall narrows his eyes through the phone. Over the years, Niall has managed to convince them all that he can tell when people are lying, which Louis personally believes is Niall’s version of a long con.

“Fuckin’ nervous, Niall, what d’you think?”

“Oh, I was thinking of _Ocean’s Eleven_!”

“That’s still Brad Pitt though, Liam,” Niall sighs. “And d’you mind mulling it over quietly, I’m trying to have a conversation about Louis’ feelings.”

“I mean, no matter what happens with the livestream tonight, it’s never gonna be my worst performance, is it,” Louis blurts out. “I’m nervous that I’m not more nervous. I really _am_ fine, I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

Harry nudges Louis’ shoulder gently with his own. “We know.”

“Yeah, well, we fucking love you, so we’re going to fucking ask anyway.”

“We’re really, really proud of you, Lou,” Liam adds, as his face swims back into focus.

“Thanks, lads.” Louis sniffs.

“He’s gonna cry,” Harry narrates solemnly for the other two.

“Y’know they can _see_ through those phone cameras, love,” Louis says, but he’s giggling through his tears now. And from the tiny conspiratorial smirk that Harry’d just shot him – the smile that always ended with one or both of them in trouble – that had been the goal.

“Urgh, Harry, stop pointing me at the window, it’s making me ill.” Liam’s voice interrupts what was shaping up to be quite a nice moment between Louis and the love of his life. “Are you having sex in the back of _another_ car? Other people have to ride in these, you know.”

“Worse – they’re gazing into each other’s eyes,” Niall says, radiating prim disapproval. “It’s horrible. I’d rather they were fucking.”

“Oh, Niall, all this time? We had no idea!” Louis waggles his eyebrows at Niall, who only sighs heavily in reply.

“Could’ve mentioned something earlier,” Harry chimes in. “Saved us a lot of worry about being discreet on the bus.”

“In the dressing rooms.”

“The plane, one time.”

“Oh! D’you remember that small alcove in—“

“Sometimes I worry about us being each other’s main formative influences,” Liam’s voice floats from the phone still left forgotten in Harry’s hand.

Niall laughs. “Remember the last time we were all in LA together, and Harry stole a bunch of chips off your plate and licked them all so you couldn’t take them back? But then you _did_ steal them back, and ate them anyway out of spite?”

“Yeah?” Liam’s face scrunches up in confusion. “Why’re you bringing that up—“

“What I’m trying to say is, I’m _always_ worried about that.”

“Hm.” Liam considers this as he moves somewhere else in his house – judging from all the jostling and rustling coming from his phone. When an image next appears on the screen, Louis recognizes his bathroom tiles.

“Are you…getting in the shower while you’re on a video call?”

“You gotta shower after the gym. Your muscles get all tight otherwise, s’not good for them,” Liam says with extreme confidence. “C’mon, it’s _fine_ , it’s not like I’m pointing the phone at my bits. It’s the same as if you were talking to me while I’m getting rained on.”

“It _really_ isn’t—”

“Says the person who apparently had sex in a _hallway_ once? What the hell?” Niall points out.

“It was an _alcove_ , and we didn’t have sex in it, we just –” Louis starts, but can’t think of any way to proceed that won’t be incriminating.

“You’re really bringing your phone into the shower, then?” Harry – who has been watching Liam’s progress with the detached air of someone committed to documenting his observations for science – thankfully interrupts.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s not _in_ the shower, I’m holding it out with my hand, like—” Liam wiggles the phone, which clarifies nothing.

“Anyway,” Liam shouts earnestly over a sudden crackling roar of water. “I know you felt nervous about putting out this song now, and I just want to say that— oh bollocks, I didn’t think about the shampoo.” Liam looks at the screen, rather helpless in the shower spray, his hair flattened and clumping oddly across his forehead.

“Could always use your elbow,” Harry offers, with barely repressed glee.

“Brilliant suggestion, Harry,” Niall says, with all the quiet fervor that he usually reserves for golf.

Louis glances at his watch and curses. “Actually I have to go, I’m already late as it is.”

“Aww!” Harry and Niall both groan, but Louis notes that Liam looks faintly relieved to hear it.

“Bye Louis! Text us when you can!”

“Yeah, or we’ll start texting Harry.”

“Please don’t make them text me.”

“Fuck you all, and I love you too.”


End file.
